MOSCOW, February 9. /TASS/. The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) needs to further simplify its procedures in order to ensure smoother and morewell-coordinated peacekeeping missions, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Pankin said at a conference dubbed ‘Collective Security in a New Era: Experiences and Prospects of the CSTO,’ hosted by the Valdai International Discussion Club on Wednesday.
"We need to learn organizational lessons and figure out how to simplify procedures in order to make sure that everything goes smoothly in legal terms and takes place in a prompt manner as far as troop deployment and a better understanding of challenges are concerned," he noted.
The deputy foreign minister added that the coherence between CSTO member states’ troops was the result of drills and operations practicing cooperation in combating terrorist threats and drug trafficking.
"We responded almost immediately. Perhaps, it was unprecedented. No one made preparations for that, no one sought to raise tensions," Pankin said, commenting on the CSTO’s peacekeeping operation in Kazakhstan. At the same time, he slammed the West’s allegations about Russia’s non-existent aggression against Ukraine as an example of activities aimed at fueling tensions in the media. "As for Kazakhstan, there was no media backdrop that would allow us to make preparations and look at all potential scenarios. That said, it was a lightning-quick and well-conducted operation," the Russian deputy foreign minister stressed.
The CSTO’s Collective Peacekeeping Forces were deployed to Kazakhstan for a limited time based on the decision that the organization’s Collective Security Council made on January 6 in order to help stabilize the situation in the country following mass riots. The CSTO’s peacekeeping troops remained in Kazakhstan until January 19. According to the Kazakh authorities, the mission attested to the organization’s viability, effectiveness and capability to take prompt action.